WowWee's $15 cardboard amp

Sometimes kids get all the great audio equipment. WowWee, makers of the RoboSapien robot and Flytech remote controlled helicopters, is releasing a line of music gear for kids. Paper Jamz is the company's newest series, a collection of ultra-thin plastic-and-cardboard guitars, drums, and even an amp that really work (to an extent).

The amp stands out as the least expensive and most useful of the three products. for $15, you get a monoaural speaker that works with any portable media player and looks like an old-school guitar amp. Of course, it's not a real amp; a small driver uses the almost empty cardboard box as a resonator to generate sound.

It doesn't get very loud and doesn't exactly sound crystal-clear, but it easily offers $15 worth of noise and novelty. It runs on three AAA batteries and doesn't have any volume controls, so you're limited by the combined power of the tiny batteries and your audio source of choice. It comes with its own headphone audio cable for connecting any media player or device to the "amp."

WowWee starts shipping Paper Jamz products, including the amp, to stores next month.